Raymond A. Brown scripsit:
> So, no, one would expect only [T] initially.
Good point.
> The odd thing is that initial
> [D] survived at all. It's, as Lars & others have said, that in unstressed
> positions the initial sound tended to be devoiced.
You mean voiced, I suppose.
> Initially AFAIK the only pair of words differentiated by the two
> sounds is {thy} /Dai/ and {thigh} /Tai/ - unless one counts the engineers
> abbreviation 'thou' /Tau/ = thou[santh of an inch] as a word.
Even finally, minimal pairs are rare: "sooth" and "soothe" is the only
one I can think of offhand.
--
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin